


even as the echo

by cordialcount



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: F/F, Rekindling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-19
Updated: 2016-11-19
Packaged: 2018-08-31 23:04:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8597221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cordialcount/pseuds/cordialcount
Summary: Given what Minako had once built with Lilia—and what they'd given up, out of a fear Victor was clearly too high on Yuuri to give a damn about—it seemed cruel to voice this, even if Lilia would have said it herself without hesitation.





	

Minako found her slouched outside on a bench, in white. Lilia and Yurio had cut a fine pair at the exhibition, and long gone were the days when every bar sported Lilia in yellows and purples, a permanent bruise to fashion and beer stocks alike; but seeing her tired and colorless under the goose-grey sky reminded Minako that she also felt her decades in her bones. Ripening, maturing, all the honeyed things Hiroko smiled to hear: she'd still been able to say _These children_ five times that day without irony.

Though Minako wanted nothing more than to sprawl out beside her, the Bolshoi's Iron Maiden could not flag like this. Standards! "Lilia, my swan," she said. Her hand snuck toward Lilia's chin.

She had expected Lilia to throw her legs to the ground and her shoulders back in disdain. The blow took Minako by surprise—Lilia had dug what had to be her wrist into Minako's back, although by the sharpness it had missed a calling as an elbow. Lilia loomed. "You _knew_ ," she said, her eyebrows drawn almost to merging, "all while you were hanging those ridiculous Russian banners, and telling me I was the most beautiful person at the rink."

She had been. Not merely in the moment Yurio had glided off the rink to perhaps the third approving smile Minako had ever witnessed on Lilia's face, as tender with her praise as she was never with her criticism: Minako had been gone on her twenty years ago. The dark rolls of her voice, her haughty charisma in flight, the absolute confidence the air would never dare to drop her. (Her thighs certainly helped. Minako sometimes still woke in the morning to a mess in her sheets, and the fugitive memory of Lilia's thighs under her tongue.) Even with her hair severely bunned, Yuri's hanging long enough to adorn her shoulders, Minako had still thought it was Lilia's grace he'd learned, not that she borrowed his grace to play at youth. She'd only been upstaged by the worst luck. Minako's own darling Yuuri had skated after, and skating Stammi Vicino again had gotten half the press corps tittering before Victor had joined, too. Lilia and Yurio had been pitting a fire, however incandescent, against the exploding sun.

Given what Minako had once built with Lilia—and what they'd given up, out of a fear Victor was clearly too high on Yuuri to give a damn about—it seemed cruel to voice this, even if Lilia would have said it herself without hesitation. Minako said, "One banner to cover three of the people I know best! Efficient, isn't it? I also had to bring the Canadian one for sexiness..."

Lilia snorted, but let her stand. "Yura's slaughter of them both will be a new vision of efficiency."

"He'd have to accept the wedding invitation first," Minako said, as lightly as she could.

Lilia's expression hovered between _Of course he will_ and _The murder line starts with me_ for a few seconds before the laugh-creases appeared by her mouth. Lilia had always been theatrical, Minako thought. As a saving note, she appreciated theater in others, even as pretend-artless as Victor's carnival of a weekend had been, and she knew what it meant: what sincerity drove it. What she and Minako could have done when they were young, had she been able to perform like this for love. 

Their breaths were visibly unfurling in the air. Minako felt it safe to bring Lilia's arm around her and plunge her left hand into Lilia's loose glove. With her right she rearranged Lilia's lapels, the better to ensure warmth, before she slid it in over Lilia's heart. They stood there for some time. It was a bright sort of cold, and Lilia's outfit had been designed by Siberians; Minako would have been willing to speak with her there until the evening clouds came forth if she hadn't heard her name. 

Yuuri, at the end of the path to the stadium. "Minako-sensei! We'll all catch pneumonia!" he shouted, although with Victor slung over his shoulder like a personal heater, he at least was in no danger.

"Lilia," she asked, "will you be in Barcelona another night?"

She thought she was lost when Lilia immediately started searching in her purse. _If she offers to trade emails_ —Minako could not finish the thought—but no, she was pinching open a small bag, from which she drew a familiar glittering brooch. _Because it can't be a ring_ , Minako had bit out, on giving it to Lilia fresh after her own Benois. Now Lilia pressed it into Minako's pocket. "Nine tonight at the Fairmont," she said, so close it stung Minako's eyes. "Don't make me wait."

Without pause she pirouetted and walked away. She and Victor exchanged swift looks as they passed, a slash and an easy parry, but she had nothing more for Minako. She was going, after all, with her head held high as ever; but she was not leaving, with any finality, and they needed no last gaze.

**Author's Note:**

> Written post-7, before the rings and ice dancing and other ?!!! of this unbelievable canon.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [even as the echo by cordialcount [podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8764738) by [Rhea314 (Rhea)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhea/pseuds/Rhea314)




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